The Finesse and Love of a Life's Long Work
by elizzabethavary
Summary: When Roger's disease catches up to him, and his last song is sung, Mark follows him into the beyond. Their friends are left behind to pick up the pieces, wondering why their filmmaker isn't there to help. M/R implied, Mimi-centric.


"Mark is dead."The words rip through her skull like fire, eating away at any possible reality left in the world. Mark, dead? There was no way. It was only two days ago that she witnesses her own boyfriend take his last breath, signifying the end of his battle for life.

She screams, and there are arms holding her back. Tears are streaming down her face, and she's fighting. A loud sob tears through her throat because the wall of people in front of her broke for just a second and she saw him. His body is paler that she's ever seen it living. His hair is still the same shade of reddish-blonde that she used to tousle when teasing him. There's an empty bottle of pills a foot away from him. AZT, it's ironic because the very thing that kept Roger alive for so long poisoned Mark from the inside out.

She falls to her knees, holding her chest and the arms let go of her and she hears muffled voices and her name and Mark's name and Roger's name. Someone's wondering whether to call Benny. She wipes her eyes and sees Maureen lightly petting Mark's hair, crying almost as hard as she is.

The reality is that Mark was the rock. Mark was what made this group work. He dealt with everything so calmly. April's death, Roger's withdrawal, Angel's death, Roger leaving, Mimi's almost-death. He lead the group to sanity. He was always there when someone needed him, that someone usually being Roger. Now, The four young artists don't know how to deal with their subtle filmmaker's death. It was the kind of thing Mark would tell them how to deal with.

Except Mark's still pale and on the floor and Maureen's still crying and Mimi can't breathe because she's sobbing so hard.

Later, Collins will say it was to be expected. That Mark couldn't have been expected to hold the fort down all by himself, that he couldn't be expected to be the only one left but god damn it, couldn't he have waited until everyone else was gone because what the hell were they supposed to do now?

Mimi knew it was all talk, and sure enough a week later, Collins was gone to who the hell knows where, following the "adventure". It was the new slang for running away, because he no longer had anyone to open up a restaurant in Santa Fe with and the reality of his disease was catching up with him just as fast as Mimi's was catching up with her.

Mimi however, kept reliving the horror of losing Roger and Mark in the same breath. Really, they were her two favorite people on earth. Roger, with his passion and his fire and his music. The way he make every nerve in her body light up with only a touch. She was more in love with him than she cared ever to admit, and that was fine by her because he was dead and she was dying. There was no more love to be had anyway.

Then there was Mark. Sweet, beautiful Mark with his sarcastic ideals, and his stupid blue and white striped scarf. Mark with his documentaries and his breathtaking films and photography that blew your mind. Mark was the most selfless person she'd ever met. He always did everything for everyone else. Made sure everyone else was okay. He never worried about himself. Mimi thinks that's part of the reason things ended up the way they held a joint funeral, because that's what you did when people died. You held funerals. You cried. You mourned. Mimi did none of those things. She attended, but she didn't cry. She couldn't bring herself to shed another tear for her boys. Instead, she watched Mr. and Mrs. Cohen speaking quietly with Mrs. Davis. Mrs. Cohen looked like she hadn't slept in weeks. She was a mess, black mascara drowning her face.

Mimi had offered the parents her condolences and exchanged a hug with both the mothers before leaving them be. Mark and Roger had known each other since grade school, so their mothers were well acquainted. They sobbed in each other's arms, each praying for their son and wishing they could have kept them safe and tucked away in Scarsdale, where AIDS was something you only hear about in rock operas and death was something that happened to your grandparents, or your favorite pet, not beautiful rockstars with who made bad choices and devoted filmmakers who gave every grain of their being to trying to save someone who was already five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes past their expiration date.

Mimi walked up to the caskets, both the boys looked healthier than she had ever seen them. Red makeup flushed their cheeks and their hair was combed and styled. Their eyes were closed, and for a second Mimi mourned the loss of those piercing baby blues, and the striking emerald greens that would never see the light of day again. She ran her fingers through Roger's hair. Freshly cut and dyed, that immaculate bleached blonde that it had been the day they'd met. His stay in the hospital had let his hair grow long and wild, she preferred him this way. Mark's camera laid in the coffin beside him, it had only seemed right to bury him with it. She looked at him intensely, as if daring him to wake up and tell her it was just a joke. He didn't though, and she let Joanne guide her gently to her seat in the front row.

The funeral proceeded as a funeral usually does. People the deceased hardly knew spouting words of nonsense about them, family members crying while reciting prepared speeches. When the pastor asked if anyone else would like to say a few words, Mimi quietly raised her hand and walked to the front of the room. It was sad, she thought, that this church was filled with people and she knew that the only people who really, truly cared about the two boys were sitting in the front row with their eyes leaking and their hearts aching for their broken rocker and their selfless filmmaker. She flattened her skirt nervously and began, directing it to her friends, because they were the ones who needed consoling the most.

"Mark and Roger were- are truly exceptional people. They were both some of my truest and closest friends. But there are other people here today who will tell you that. The truth is that Mark and Roger both fought so hard for what they believed in. Mark watched as Roger underwent his battle against AIDS. He helped Roger through the death of his past girlfriend, April and the realization of what his disease meant for him. They had a love unlike any other, a deep affection that you can only have from someone you've known your entire life. True, I was Roger's girlfriend and I love him still very much, but I realized that nothing could compare to their friendship. And this isn't a testimony to our loss, but to Mark and Roger's life." She paused for a moment, taking a breath before steadying herself and finishing off her speech. "My friend Collins was right, it was to be expected. How could you deal with losing someone you've loved since before you knew what love was? It's sad to see AIDS kill more than just the people infected, but it somehow seems right that we're burying them together."

Another loud sob sounded from Mrs. Cohen, and a mumble of voices before quiet applause. Mimi took her seat between Maureen and Collins and rested her hands in her lap while Mark's sister Cindy got up to sing a rendition of There You'll Be, by Faith Hill. It was breathtaking, Cindy had a beautiful voice. When the song ended and the crowd dispersed, the four remaining friends watched the crane dump dirt over the bodies of the boys who had meant so much to them. Their headstones side by side made for a bitter sweet picture. She tossed her promise ring on the pile of earth covering Roger's grave, she saw Maureen place what looked to be a film canister with something in it on Mark's before turning around and sobbing in Joanne's arms.

Mimi couldn't watch. It was unbearable to her that she no longer had someone to hold her, so she said her goodbyes and went home.

The days passed quickly. She made sure of it. She kept herself busy with work and made sure not to look at the loft upstairs before entering her own apartment. It wasn't for another week that Benny finally showed up, knocking curtly at Mimi's door at nine o'clock in the morning with condolences and the request to take anything that means anything out of the loft before he threw out the rest of it. She agreed, not without a few choice words of course, and stormed up the stairs and threw open the sliding door before she realized what she was doing and froze in her tracks. The loft was exactly as they'd left it. Dishes covered the counter, Roger's guitar laid on the floor collecting more dust as the days went by. Some of Collins' things were stacked by the door. Empty film canisters and half written screenplays scattered across the loft, along with notebooks, sheet music and guitar picks. Mimi starting sifting through their stuff, feeling like she was invading on something very private. Mark and Roger's lives revolved around each other so easily, it was almost like intruding when someone tried to remove a part of them. Except they were no longer living, so it really shouldn't feel like they were going to walk back into the loft at any second, drunk and laughing and hanging off each other like it was nothing. Mimi wiped away a few tears as she moved across the loft, keeping things like scripts she really liked of Mark's and songs Roger had written her. In her mission, she found a video tape with her name in it, obviously in Mark's writing. She contemplated putting it back and saving herself the pain, but something about all this just didn't make sense in her mind. It was as if she was just missing something, and if she wanted closure, she would have to watch the tape.

It was unfair, because her and Roger saw his death coming and had closure, but Mark hadn't given anyone time to say goodbyes. She pulled out Mark's archaic television and slid the videotape in the VCR.

Mark blurred into view. He was sitting on the table, the same table she had almost died on two years earlier. He was wearing his scarf and a green sweater. His eyes were bloodshot and he was shaking. "August 27th, 1992. 3am, Eastern Standard time. God, I can't believe I'm doing this." He said, talking to his hands before wiping his glasses off and looking at the camera. "Hey guys, or just Mimi. I guess I'll never know who's watching this." He chuckled, Mimi didn't think it was funny.

"Roger's dead. He died-" He checked his watch, "-seventeen hours ago. I was in the room with him. So were you. He held both our hands as he told us that he thought he was dying. We were with him every second he spent in that hospital bed, and I'm so thankful you were there with me. I don't think I could have done it on my own."

Mimi shook as more tears ran down her face.

"Since you're watching this, I'm probably dead. Well, that's the plan anyway and if I chicken out, I'll just burn the tape and pretend it never happened. The point is that every moment I've lived since I was five years old was with Roger. Since the first day I met him, when he poured green paint in my hair and showed me how to make a guitar out of a Kleenex box and some rubber bands, I've been absolutely devoted to him. I've spent my entire adult life trying to keep him alive. That went before anything, my film, food, heat, rent.

"Roger's life was an epic roller coaster, he had his highs and lows and he really experienced it. My life is more like the ironic comment on the end notes of the blockbuster film that was inspired by his life. He was right, I spent so much time behind the camera, seeing everything through a lens, that I didn't experience life the way I should have. And no, this isn't some kind of worthless self pity thing. I don't regret a moment of it, because if I hadn't spent so much time keeping him alive, he'd have died a long time before today. You were a big part of that, you saved him just as much as I did, so thank you, Mimi.""The truth is, that now that I don't have him, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. The only thing I want to do is be with him again. I know a lot of people won't understand, but Roger and I lived for each other, and we can't live without each other. I know you'll probably resent me for this, but I love him. I really, really do, and I always have and it just seems stupid to try and keep going when there's nothing keeping you here."

"I know this is kind of hypocritical, because I spent so much time trying to keep him from dying. I really have no more excuses. I just kind of hope you'll never see this, but I just don't want to leave anything unsaid. I figured you deserved to know if anyone did. He knew, of course. I didn't have to say if for him to know that I loved him. I'd never let it come between us though, and I hope you don't let it come between you and I. I'm just going to let the film fade, die away with no more bad memories. I love you all, very much, and I'm very sorry for leaving you like this."The screen went black and flickered a little before some footage of the seven of them came on the screen, having a good time, images of Roger and April, Roger and Mimi, Mimi and Mark, Mark and Maureen, Maureen and Joanne, Collins and Angel, and even a few shots of Benny flew across the screen. Mimi realized that this was Mark's eulogy, the smiles of his friends marked the end notes of his life.

The last frame of the film showed a much younger Roger than Mimi had ever known, sitting on a couch in a middle class living room with a young Mark sitting in front of him, holding Roger's beloved fender acoustic. The camera work was shaky and the boys were absolutely oblivious. It was then Mimi realized that Mark was the only person allowed to touch Roger's guitar, and Roger was the only person allowed to touch Mark's camera. A teenage girl that sounded suspiciously like Maureen was whispering about how adorable they were as Roger helped Mark form a chord and Mark looked up at him with a genuine, breathtaking smile.

Then the film flickered for the last time, and the screen went black.


End file.
